Goal 13: Climate action

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

There is no country in the world that is not seeing first-hand the drastic effects of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and are now more than 50 percent higher than their 1990 level. Further, global warming is causing long-lasting changes to our climate system, which threatens irreversible consequences if we do not take action now.

The annual average losses from just earthquakes, tsunamis, tropical cyclones and flooding count in the hundreds of billions of dollars, requiring an investment of US$ 6 billion annually in disaster risk management alone. The goal aims to mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries and help mitigate climate-related disasters.

Strengthening the resilience and adaptive capacity of more vulnerable regions, such as land locked countries and island states, must go hand in hand with efforts to raise awareness and integrate measures into national policies and strategies. It is still possible, with the political will and a wide array of technological measures, to limit the increase in global mean temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This requires urgent collective action.

Our work

Despite the beautiful landscapes, panoramic views, and resilient mountain people, life in the mountains of Nepal can be tough, particularly for rural youth who are abandoning their villages in search of employment elsewhere.more

Mehemmed Veliyev, a 45-year-old farmer living in Abrikh Village in Azerbaijan, had a good life. He had hectares of land where he grew fruit and hazelnut. But the environment he depended upon turned on him one day in 2008.more

For Ki Her, the head of Kioutaloun village in mountainous northern Lao PDR, and 95 percent of the population who grow rice, the change in the weather over the past several years presents significant challenges.more